One in three pay-tv customers say they are struggling to keep up with constant charge increases.

Research from Freesat shows that customers will quit their contract if prices continue to rise.

The findings follow the news that BT Sport are to hike the cost its channels up by 33 per cent for some customers – 15 times the rate of UK annual wage growth.

Currently, BT Broadband customers pay £7.50 a month for BT Sport channels, but this will jump to £10 in January 2018 – a 33 per cent rise.

For Sky customers who have BT Sport without BT Broadband, charges will jump from £22.99 to £25.99 per month – a 13 per cent rise. Both figures dwarf the 2.2% growth in weekly earnings seen by the average UK worker in the last year.

The latest price increases come just nine months after previous hikes from the TV and internet provider, in April this year. They’re also the third round of price increases BT has made in 18 months.

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In Freesat’s study of 2,000 pay TV customers, while a third (36 per cent) warned that they would have to quit their contract if prices keep rising at the current rate, almost half (45 per cent) said they feel taken advantage of by constant hikes.

A further 34 per cent said they were confused as to why prices go up so regularly, while 35% said they feel powerless to argue.

In the Freesat study, 60 per cent of people with a sports channel subscription feel their service is overpriced, while one in four (27 per cent) said they don’t make full use of their service.

Previous research from Freesat also found that the majority of popular sporting events are available on free channels.

Of the 10 most anticapted sporting events of the summer of 2017, seven were aired on free channels, including Wimbledon and the Tour de France.

Guy Southam, spokesperson for Freesat said: “TV customers who pay to watch sport on TV should consider how much they actually use their services and whether they really need all of the channels they’re paying for. Lots of the top sporting events are already available to watch for free.

“To put it into perspective, cutting back on a sports subscription with Sky and BT could save someone more than £500 annually, enough for an extra holiday every year.”

To find out how much you could save by switching from Sky to Freesat, click here.